Pathogen virulence genes--implications for vaccines and drug therapy.

The emergence and spread of bacteria resistant to antimicrobial drugs is a major public health problem with a growing number of infections becoming virtually untreatable. There is a need to develop interventions both to prevent and to treat diseases caused by multi-resistant microbes. We review some recently developed methods (including whole genome nucleotide sequencing projects) to study bacterial pathogenesis, and discuss how knowledge gained from understanding the molecular mechanisms of disease can be applied to combat the threat of infectious diseases.